but she says not wealthy enough to have saved the money for the more than $50,000 a year to attend brown. >> whether you're in the middle dallas, you're a normal suburban family, but you don't make an outrageous amounts of money. you can't pay for outrageous prices for tuition. >> reporter: she's not alone. student loan debt hit a trillion dollars last year. even tuition for public four-year colleges rose 68% over the last decade. enter the presidential campaign with college affordability a key issue for younger voters. >> i want to make college more affordable for every young person with the initiative and drive to go and make sure they're not burdened by thousands of dollars worth of debt. >> reporter: president obama has expanded pell grants and cut out the banks as middlemen for the loans, allowing students to borrow directly from the government. now obama proposes to slow tuition grants by increasing state grants. yet he'd need congress to help fund that. >> i'm not going to promise free stuff that i know you're going to end up paying for. i want to give you a great job so you'll be